20:50 – 21:10 [gmt] DeutschlandRadioKultur

FRANCISCO LOPEZ
SONOPOLIS

“SONOPOLIS” is a large sound piece based in the electroacoustic transformation, montage, mix, and edition of a vast number of original field recordings carried out by the author in urban environments from all over the world over the past twenty five years, along a temporal path through the millenium change. Spanning more than one hundred cities in the five continents – from Montreal to Ushuaia, from Lisbon to Moscow, from Dakar to Cape Town, from Taipei to Melbourne – the author has explored the sonic matter of these urban environments in all their multiplicity and complexity.

The concept of this project is to create an extensive immersive sonic voyage (about 2 hours) conceived as a radio/hörspiel piece and based on the “Schaefferian” idea of sound object, that is, focusing on the phenomenological features of sound matter in its textural and spatial qualities. The studio work on these materials will explore the characteristics of spatial and temporal virtuality associated to the sound environments gathered, without limiting this to a representation of reality or turning into an “abstract” material of purely electronic aesthetic.

“SONOPOLIS” is thus creating a sonic virtual reality from original real materials. Somehow a grand global ideal city, mutated and reconfigured. The piece is conceived as a long and complex sonic voyage, in which the virtual spaces are combined and succeed each other through an internal “geography” laden with acoustic nuances, wide dynamics (from the subtle to the grandiose), textures and sound events of a large variety. The overall structure has a musical conception in terms of the development of an immersive listening experience, changing, difficult to predict, and extremely careful in the qualities of the resulting sound.

BIOGRAPHY FRANCISCO LOPEZFrancisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures on the stage of sound art and experimental music. His experience in the field of sound creation and work with environmental recordings covers a period of 30 years, during which he has developed an impressive sound universe that is completely personal and iconoclastic and based on profound listening to the world. He has performed hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings and sound installations in 60 countries all over the world, including the main international museums, galleries and festivals, such as: PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), Museum of Modern Art (Paris), International Film Festival (Rotterdam), Festival des Arts (Brussels), Darwin Fringe (Darwin, Australia), Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, Center of Contemporary Art (Kita-Kyushu, Japan), etc. His extensive catalogue of sound pieces (with live and studio collaborations with more than 130 international artists) has been published by more than 200 recording companies all over the world. He has been awarded three times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival and is the recipient of the Qwartz Award 2010 for best sound anthology.